


The Shimmer

by hipgrab (merrymegtargaryen)



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Horror, Inspired by Annihilation (2018), Mentions of Pregnancy, as well as the Southern Reach trilogy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-03-08 00:47:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18884692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merrymegtargaryen/pseuds/hipgrab
Summary: “Honestly?” Phasma shrugs. “You described it as a suicide mission, but I don’t think it’s as reductive as that. It’s...self-destruction.”“Aren’t they the same thing?”Phasma shakes her head. “Almost none of us commit suicide. Almost all of us self-destruct in some way, in some part of our lives. We drink or we smoke. We destabilize the good job or the happy marriage. These aren’t decisions, they’re impulses. In fact, you’re probably better equipped to explain this than I am.”Rey blinks at her. “What do you mean?”“You’re a biologist,” Phasma says in an obvious sort of tone. “Isn’t self-destruction coded into us?”





	1. Annihilation

**Author's Note:**

> I am SO excited to share this with you guys!!!!! If you've read my fics before you'll know that I write everything ahead of time and then queue my fics, and I've been sitting on this one since September--so I'm glad it's seeing the light of day!
> 
> Annihilation is probably one of my favorite movies, but don't let that stop you if you haven't seen it or read the books; hopefully everything will make sense anyway, and if not, I'm happy to explain. 
> 
> Huge, huge thanks to reyofdarkness for betaing--I always appreciate your opinions and advice!!

Rey peers into her microscope and watches the cell divide, over and over, until it becomes a whole army of cells. No matter how many times she stares at these cells, no matter how many times she watches them, they always do the same thing: divide, divide, divide. 

She turns back to her laptop and sighs. Her dissertation is never getting written. 

She’d thought that the silence might help. That being alone in this house would help her productivity. 

It’s only made it harder to focus. She keeps wondering about Ben--where he is, what he’s doing. Why she hasn’t heard from him in twelve months. If he’s all right. If he’s still alive. 

They would have told her if he’d died, surely. If he’d been injured. 

But then, you’d think she would’ve heard something,  _ anything, _ by now.

Everyone else thinks he’s dead. They’ll never admit it, but she knows that her friends’ sympathetic looks are hiding something. 

Work on her dissertation had come to a shuddering halt about six months ago. Back when she’d first started to realize that Ben’s death was a distinct possibility. Back when she’d started frantically calling the other partners to ask what had happened to him. No one knew anything. Not his research lab, not the contractors, no one. 

“Top secret,” was all they’d been able to say. “We weren’t given any information.”

Some nights she lies awake and wonders what could be so top-secret. What mission involving a  _ biologist _ could be shrouded in so much mystery? What could he be doing for twelve months that no one knows what happened to him or why?

The words on her screen blur as her eyes begin to water. She feels the familiar rush of shame, of anger, of emptiness. 

_ Why had he gone? _

“Rey.”

She can hear his voice even now, even after twelve months without it, it’s like he’s here in the room with her--

“Rey.”

She looks up and screams. 

He’s here. Ben. Standing in the office, looking at her with a confused expression. She knocks over her chair in her haste to get up, throwing her arms around his tall frame. He feels the same, if maybe a little leaner. He smells different. Or maybe he’s always smelled this way and it’s changed in her memory. 

Slowly, awkwardly, Ben puts his arms around her, as if he’s forgotten how to hug. Maybe he’s just forgotten how to hug her. That thought sends a pang through her.

“You’re here,” she says, and she realizes she’s crying. Crying and shaking and making his shirt damp with tears. She can’t bring herself to care.  _ He’s here _ . Twelve months of silence, of no possible way of knowing what happened to him, and he’s  _ here _ . 

“Where were you?” she asks. He doesn’t answer, and she lets out a sob of frustration. “Please, Ben, tell me where you were.”

“I don’t know.”

She pulls back to look at him.

He looks the same, only...different. There’s something about him she just can’t quite place. But what? 

“You don’t know?” 

He shakes his head with a funny look on his face. “No.”

“Do you…was it a research facility?”

He stares at her with uncomprehending eyes. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” She squeezes his hand. “Baby, what...what  _ do _ you know? What can you tell me?”

His lips open and she prays he won’t say the words. “I don’t know.”

“Ben!” Now she’s angry. Angry and still crying. “Where  _ were _ you? I understand if you can’t talk about the details, but you’ve been gone for  _ twelve months _ and  _ no one _ has heard from you. So what can you tell me?”

He pauses. “I don’t feel very well.”

And then he starts coughing up blood. 

Rey screams again, this time in terror. She screams as more of his blood lands on her sweatshirt, and then she pounces for her phone and dials 911. Ben falls to the floor, convulsing, as she screams at the operator that her husband is having an attack, he’s coughing up blood, please god send an ambulance--

He’s still coughing and convulsing when the ambulance arrives. They strap him to a stretcher and load him in, shouting frantic medical terms at each other that Rey doesn’t understand. All of her focus is on Ben, on begging him to stay with her, he can’t die, not after coming back to her, not now, not like this--

She barely registers the ambulance screeching to a halt, but she does notice when the doors open and men in black with huge rifles shout at them to stand down. They take Ben, still coughing and convulsing on his stretcher.

“You can’t take him! I am his wife, you can’t take him!” she shouts, and one of them reaches in and plucks her out.

“What are you--” she starts to ask, but then there’s a sharp pain in her side. Then, nothing.


	2. Initiation

She wakes alone in a cell. She barely has time to register her surroundings--a bed, a nook with a toilet, sink, and shower, dark glass walls--before her stomach heaves and she staggers to the toilet to throw up. The acrid taste burns her mouth and throat, and as soon as the last of the convulsions have ended, she flushes the toilet and sticks her face in the sink, slurping up lukewarm tap water. 

Behind her, she hears a door open and close. When she turns around, she sees a statuesque woman with a short blonde bob, tailored suit, and manila envelope in her room, watching her.

“Side effect of the sedative,” she says in a clipped, posh English accent. “Leaves you with a bit of a hangover, I’m afraid.”

“Where am I?” Rey asks. Slurs, more like. She realizes for the first time that she’s wearing blue hospital scrubs. 

“You served in the military, Mrs. Johnson, is that correct?”

Rey closes her eyes. The fluorescent lights are so bright. “One tour in Afghanistan. Why is that relevant?” 

“In the military, Mrs. Johnson, I’m sure you were taught the meaning of classified information?”

Rey opens her eyes. “Yes.”

The blonde woman looks satisfied. “Everything I’m about to say to you is  _ classified _ . You will get all the answers you’re looking for in due course.”

Rey swallows. She can still taste the bitter, acidic taste of bile. “Where am I?”

“You’re in a research facility run by the First Order. Have you ever heard of the First Order?”

Rey shakes her head truthfully.

The woman nods. “Good. It’s a top-secret research sector of the U.S. government. It’s the sector that recruited your husband.”

Rey perks up. “Where is he?”

“He’s under observation.”

“Who are you?”

If the woman is irritated by the constant stream of questions, she shows no sign of it. “I am Dr. Phasma; I’m the assistant director of the First Order.”

“What’s going on?” Rey asks, easing onto the bed. 

Dr. Phasma produces a chair that Rey hadn’t even noticed and sits across from her. “I need you to answer some questions first. Can you do that for me?”

Rey hesitates, then nods.

“Did your husband tell you where he was going?”

Rey shakes her head. “No.”

“He didn’t say anything?”

“He told me it was top-secret and that even he didn’t know much. I didn’t push it.”

“Did he contact you at all during his absence?”

“No.”

“But you made regular attempts to contact him,” Dr. Phasma states rather than asks. “Your most recent request for information was less than three weeks ago. Even after all this time, you didn’t give up on him.”

“Would you?” Rey asks in a cracked sort of voice.

Dr. Phasma gives her an unreadable expression. Her eyes flick to the manila folder in her lap. “Your husband is extremely ill.”

“What’s wrong with him?” Rey squeaks, crying again.

“Multiple organ failure. We think.”

“You  _ think _ ?” Rey stares at her. “What do you mean, you  _ think _ ?”

“Well, that’s the tricky part.” Dr. Phasma looks up at her again. “You see, he’s the only person to have ever survived.”

Rey’s throat is dry as she asks, “Ever survived  _ what _ ?”

“The Shimmer.”

.

Rey’s never seen anything like it. It’s like a giant waterfall, but instead of a steady descent, the substance--whatever it is--oozes up and down, back and forth.  _ Like a cell dividing _ , she thinks. From one angle, it looks like mist; from another, gelatin. It doesn’t help that it’s a rainbow, making it impossible for her to get a decent view of it. Even with the enormous spotlights concentrated on the wall, Rey can’t make out what exactly it is.

It just.

Shimmers.

“What is it?” she asks.

“We don’t know,” Dr. Phasma says honestly. “Three years ago, a meteorite hit a lighthouse down the coast. Rangers in the national park reported seeing a shimmer around it. One went in to investigate and never returned. Since then, it’s been spreading. We’ve sent tanks inside, drones, people...and the only thing that’s ever come out is your husband.”

Rey swallows. “Why?”

“Well, that’s what we’re trying to figure out.” Dr. Phasma peers at her. “What exactly happened when he returned?”

Rey tells her how he’d just appeared out of nowhere, how he’d been acting strangely. She tells her that he wouldn’t answer any of her questions because he genuinely didn’t seem to understand them. She tells her how he’d said he didn’t feel good right before he started coughing up blood. 

Dr. Phasma takes diligent note of everything Rey says, stopping her repeatedly and asking her to clarify. 

“Please,” Rey says when she finishes. “I want to see him.”

The hospital wing is empty, which Rey supposes makes sense--if no one’s ever come out, there wouldn’t be many patients. The only one there is her husband.

He looks awful. He’s hooked up to multiple machines, and there is what looks like glitter all over his eyes. It’s like someone who’s cried too much before falling asleep, but instead of crust, it’s craft supplies. 

“Is he dying?” Rey asks from where she’s pressed against the observation window. 

Dr. Phasma is quiet for a long moment. “Yes.”

Rey trembles. “What can I...what can I do? What can we do to keep him alive?” But she already knows what the assistant director is going to say.

“Nothing.”

Rey closes her eyes. “Can I stay...here? With him?”

“We can’t exactly let you leave,” Dr. Phasma says quietly. “Not after everything.”

Rey’s head hurts too much to try to decipher that.

.

She spends three days at the First Order research facility. She still sleeps in that awful cell, but she understands why they’d want to keep her under observation. It doesn’t matter. She’s here for Ben.

They don’t let her go into his room, but they do let her stand at the observation window for as long as she likes. It’s a depressing cycle; she wakes up, showers, eats in the mess hall. Goes to the window and stares. Takes a walk. Eats lunch. Goes to the window. Walks. Goes back to the window. Eats dinner. Stares. Goes to bed. Lather, rinse, repeat.

On the third day, she becomes tired of staring. Ben does nothing but sleep, and she thinks that she’s slowly driving herself crazy. She goes out to the deck, where some of the inhabitants of the First Order research facility smoke, drink, and hang out. 

She doesn’t know any of them. She hangs out by the railing, staring out at the Shimmer. The lights have been dimmed because of the late hour, but she can still see it oozing in the near distance. 

Someone comes up beside Rey. It’s a woman, short and round-faced. She smiles at Rey. “You okay?”

Rey takes a deep breath. “That’s sort of a complicated question.”

The woman nods. “I feel that. I don’t think anyone here is...fully okay.” She smiles, extending her hand. “Rose Tico.”

“Rey Johnson.” Rey shakes her hand.

“Do you want to join us?” Rose asks. She jerks her thumb over her shoulder, indicating two women who are watching them. They wave, clearly embarrassed to have been caught spying, and Rey waves back. They look nice, so she nods.

“Sure. Yeah.”

Rose leads Rey back to her table. “This is my sister, Paige,” a tall woman with a stylishly short haircut nods at Rey, “and Kaydel Co Connix.”

“You can just call me Kaydel,” the blonde says, smiling.

“This is Rey,” Rose says as she and Rey sit down. 

“Do you want a beer?” Paige offers.

“Oh, uh, no--” Rey hesitates. “Actually, yes.”

Paige smiles, grabbing another bottle and easily snapping off the cap before handing it to Rey. 

“Thank you,” she murmurs, drinking deeply.

“So, Rey, how long have you been here?” Kaydel asks.

Rey shakes her head. “Just a few days. You?”

“Almost a year,” Kaydel says. “They brought me in to try and figure out why there’s no communication going in or out of the Shimmer, but…” She shrugs. “No leads. It’s like this giant...barrier.”

“I’ve been here six months,” Paige supplies. “Rose and I came in together, actually.”

“What’s your specialty?”

The sisters exchange amused looks.

“Well, I’m an engineer,” Rose says, “and Paige is a nuclear physicist.”

Rey raises her eyebrows. “That’s impressive.”

“There isn’t really a way for me to agree or disagree without sounding like an asshole,” Paige says. “So I’m just gonna say thanks.” 

“What’s your specialty?” Rose asks Rey.

She takes another swig of her beer. “Um, I’m still working on my PhD...biology.”

“So, when’s your expedition?” Rose asks.

“Into the Shimmer?” Rey asks. So, they’re still sending people inside. “Um...I don’t...know?”

“Ours is in six days,” Kaydel says, jiggling her leg. Paige wraps an arm around her and gives her a comforting squeeze.

Rey glances around at them. “And it’s you three?”

“Four,” Rose says. “Phasma’s coming too.”

Rey raises her eyebrows. “Is that normal? For the assistant director to come on these expeditions?”

“I don’t know,” Paige says. “We all came in after the last one left.”

“It’s the only reason I feel kind of okay about going in,” Rose says. “One of their guys came back.”

“I heard he’s dying,” Kaydel says conspiratorially. Then, seeing the look on Rose’s face, she quickly adds, “But he came back, which means there’s definitely hope for us. And we’ll have Phasma, so…” She trails off, and they sit for a long moment in silence. 

.

The next morning, when she would normally be staring at Ben through the observation window, Rey tracks down Phasma. The other woman’s office offers a view of the Shimmer, but Rey has her back to it as she makes her request. 

“I want to go on the expedition.”

Phasma doesn’t react, just looks at her impassively. “I see,” she says after a long moment. “You feel there is nothing more you can do for your husband...so you’re volunteering to go on a suicide mission.”

“Why are  _ you _ going?” Rey asks heatedly. “Why did you send my husband?”

“The mission statement is to go to the lighthouse and find the source of the Shimmer,” Phasma says, writing something down. 

“But why does the assistant director have to go?” Rey wants to know. “Why did that involve my husband?”

“I’m going to see the mission through,” Phasma says, still writing. “Your husband went because most of our early missions were military. The longer the Shimmer remained, the more we realized that we didn’t understand it--and that we needed to. So we started bringing along more scientists. Your husband was on the first all-scientist expedition. This will be the second.”

Rey leans forward. “Then let me come. You need me. I was in the military--I can defend myself and the others.”

Phasma considers her. “You’ll need training.”

“Better get cracking, then,” Rey says. “We only have five days before the expedition.”

Phasma has a look of grudging respect. “All right, then. Welcome to the First Order.”

.

Training takes all of those five days. They show Rey videos of the earlier expeditions that went into the Shimmer, show her how the people disappeared into that oozing rainbow. 

They give her an idea of what to expect, but of course, it’s all educated guesses. No one knows what actually lies beyond the border. 

She goes to the gym, too, and trains her body. It’s hard with such a small window, but it gives her something to do, something to take her mind off of it all. 

She visits Ben only once a day now, and never for more than a few minutes. In some ways, it feels like a betrayal.  _ I’m doing this for him _ , she has to remind herself.  _ I’m doing this to figure out what’s going on, and then I can help him. I can save him. _

Deep down, she knows there’s more to it than that. She knows this isn’t a wholly selfless move. But she can’t let herself think of that. Not now. 

The day of the expedition dawns foggy and cool. Rey dresses in the tank top, henley, and fatigues that the First Order gave her. It takes what feels like an hour for her and the other women to fill their packs, tucking everything just so so that it fits inside, and then they assemble their rifles. 

It’s almost noon by the time they finally head out. They walk, all in a horizontal line, towards the glimmering, oozing rainbow wall. Rey breathes deeply as they get closer. It’s just a mist, she realizes now. Just a thick, shifting mist. How could this mist be responsible for the disappearance of so many people? How could highly trained military personnel and elite scientists not be able to find their way out of little more than  _ vapor _ ?

Phasma pauses when they’re standing in front of it. She turns, looking at all of them, and then marches inside. The others follow, one at a time, and then it’s Rey’s turn. She takes a deep breath and plunges in.

That’s the last thing she remembers.


	3. Integration

Rey dreams. 

Or rather, she remembers.

She remembers the day before Ben left. How they’d spent the whole day in bed, just cuddling and fucking and cuddling some more. Some strange, desperate part of Rey hoped that she would get pregnant. That he would come home and she’d tell him the good news and she’d earn the title of “Doctor” at the same time she’d earn that of “Mother.” 

But her period arrived and Ben never did. Eleven periods had passed between his going away and now. 

And now…

There’s a light shining through her eyelids. She stirs awake, blinking. She’s in a tent that she’s never seen before. Her things are beside her, still mostly packed. Her bag looks a little smaller, as if it has a little more room, but maybe that’s just because it’s partially unpacked. Her rifle is also beside her. She takes that with her when she stumbles out of her tent, blinking in the daylight.

It’s...different, out here. It’s like a normal forest, except the sky is a soft rainbow, and all the light that filters in through the trees is distorted. The sun shining through the Shimmer. It feels...fresher, somehow, too. The air. As if this is a brand-new place that’s just been created. In a way, Rey supposes it is. 

The others are outside in a clearing not far from her tent. Paige and Kaydel are kneeling over the contents of their packs while Rose sits at the entrance of her tent, rubbing sleep from her eyes. Phasma stands over Paige and Kaydel, looking more alert than any of them. There’s an air of impatience about her, as if she finds whatever task the others are doing to be a waste of time. 

“Where are we?” Rey asks. “I don’t remember setting up camp.”

Paige and Kaydel exchange a look.

“Yeah, none of us do,” Kaydel says. “Do you remember anything after walking into the Shimmer?”

Rey shakes her head.

“Neither do we.”

That sends a chill down Rey’s spine. “So...we pitched camp at some point last night, but no one remembers it?”

“That’s the thing,” Kaydel says. “We’re missing three or four days’ worth of rations.”

Rey feels distinctly unsettled by this announcement. “We’ve been here for four days?”

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” Paige says, examining the contents of her and Kaydel’s packs like a witch trying to divine the future out of animal bones. “But it looks like...yes.”

“And that’s not all,” Kaydel says. “The electronics have totally stopped working. We know how many satellites are over the Shimmer, and we’re not getting a signal from  _ any _ of them. No radio waves, nothing.”

“Well, we already knew that would be a likelihood,” Phasma says. “We haven’t been able to make contact with anyone in the Shimmer, ever.”

“I know,” Kaydel says, sounding hurt. “I’m just saying, it’s...weird. There’s no reason it should be happening, but...it is.”

“And check this out.” Paige pulls out her compass, which is going absolutely haywire. “It doesn’t  _ work _ .”

The chill down Rey’s spine only gets worse. Compasses, she knows, aren’t machines, don’t require any kind of power. They’re just magnets. How could a magnet not work because of  _ mist _ ?

“It’s like technology doesn’t work in here,” Rose says blearily. “Like we’ve entered another dimension.”

“Maybe we have,” Paige murmurs.

They let that hang in the air for a moment. 

“Do you think that’s possible?” Rey asks. “Like a...a wormhole?”

“Normally, I’d say no,” Paige says, sitting back on her haunches. “But given the circumstances...I think it’s possible. I mean, no one’s ever come out of this thing, except for that one guy, and he was in pretty bad shape. Nothing works--not even a compass, which  _ should _ point due north, but if there’s no magnetic pull, or maybe an overwhelming magnetic pull…” She shakes her head. “I’d say a wormhole is definitely a possibility.”

Rose looks wide awake now. “So...how do we get out?  _ Do _ we get out?”

“We’ll get out,” Paige assures her. 

But Rey doesn’t know how. Granted, she’s a biologist, not a nuclear physicist, but she doesn’t see how they could get out, especially now that they’ve been in the Shimmer for three or four days and have no idea where they are. She supposes they could always find north and south and head in a general direction, but...what if they can’t? If Paige is right and this is a wormhole, north and south might not mean anything. And if three years’ worth of expeditions haven’t been able to make it out, why should they?

_ But Ben made it out _ , she thinks.  _ Ben made it out, and so can I. _

“Our objective is to reach the lighthouse,” she finds herself saying. “Is that still doable?”

The others look at each other. Phasma looks pleased. “Excellent question, Johnson. Ladies? What do we think?”

“I mean...as long as the geography hasn’t shifted, reaching the lighthouse should be doable,” Paige says slowly. “But how are we going to find it?”

“The coast is south of the entry point,” Phasma says, now sounding like a school teacher. “So how do we find south?”

“Hour hand at the sun,” Rey says, remembering her military training. “Divide the distance by twelve.” She does this, then points behind her. “So, that way.”

“Excellent. Let’s pack and get going,” Phasma says. “Before we have to spend another night here.”

_ Another night _ . Something about the way she says it...as if they spent more than one night here. But how would she know? None of them remember anything after entering the Shimmer.

They pack up camp and head south--or what they assume is south. Despite Rey’s confident tone when she told them which way was south, she isn’t actually sure that it’s the right way. Paige said the geography shouldn’t have shifted, but how can they know it hasn’t? What if it has? What if nothing about the Shimmer is remotely like the place it was before?

Their path takes them to a swamp. There’s a house half-sunken into the water and a small tin roof over some tarp beside it.

“Is there any way around it?” Rose asks of the swamp.

“Better yet,” Paige says, “there’s a way through it.” She pulls off the tarp, revealing two boats stacked on top of each other. “Kaydel, help me with these?”

While Paige and Kaydel set to the boats, Rey, Rose, and Phasma wander towards the house. Rose walks inside, wood creaking under her boots, while Rey bends to examine the flowers lining the walkway. They don’t make any sense; they’re all different species, but they’re all growing from the same bush. 

“Pretty,” Phasma says blandly.

“They shouldn’t be possible.”

Phasma perks up at that. “How so?”

“They’re all different species, see?” Rey says, pointing to a blue orchid-like plant and a green rose-like plant.  _ Like _ because they aren’t, really. They aren’t orchids or roses or any flowers she knows of. They’re like if someone who had never seen flowers before saw them once and then tried to render them again. “Which means they  _ should _ be growing from different bushes, but...they’re not. They’re growing from the same bush. And none of these species are anything I’ve ever seen before. They’re like some...bizarre hybrid.” She wishes, suddenly, that she could show this to Ben. But he would have already seen it, wouldn’t he? Had he wanted to show this to her? Had he seen these flowers and thought of his wife, writing her dissertation on dividing cells and thought,  _ These are so strange, Rey would be so fascinated? _

Or had he thought of Rey at all? Had he been so consumed with this place, this scientific anomaly, that he hadn’t had time to spare a thought for his silly little wife writing her silly little dissertation?

He was here for a whole year. How often had he thought of Rey during that time? 

While Rey’s collecting samples, Rose pokes her head out of the house. “I don’t think anyone was living here even before the evacuation--” And then something yanks her back and she screams.

Everyone is on their feet, running towards the house. Rey’s closest; she runs into the house and wades into the water where Rose is thrashing and grabs her, pulling her up and out.

“Something had my bag, something had my bag,” Rose is sobbing as Rey pushes her out the door. Paige wraps an arm around her sister, walking her down the walkway and towards the boats.

The house shudders, and then something enormous crashes out of it, sliding into the water. It’s an alligator, Rey realizes. Bigger than she knew alligators could be and not colored like any she’s ever seen--it’s pink and white and it’s coming right towards them.

Rey’s military training kicks in. She gets on one knee, opening fire on the gator before it can reach any of them. It takes nearly all of her ammo before the thing finally stops, making huge, creaking gasps for air. Then it slumps, dead. 

They wait several minutes before cautiously approaching the monster. 

“Is that an alligator?” Kaydel asks, looking pale. 

“I  _ think _ so,” Rey says. “But it’s not...like any alligator I’ve ever seen. Or any other reptile, for that matter. I got a look at its mouth when I was shooting...I’d like to get a closer look.”

Paige volunteers to lift the gator’s jaw while Rey peers inside.

“Okay, this is weird,” she announces. “These are shark teeth.”

“Is that possible?” Phasma asks.

Rey shakes her head. “No.”

“What if it’s a cross-breed?”

“You can’t cross-breed different species. It’s like the flowers,” she explains. “They come from different genetic structures, so they shouldn’t be able to grow from the same structure.”

“But this one did,” Phasma points out.

Rey nods. “But this one did.”

When she’s collected a cell sample, they pile in the boats and continue their course south. Phasma and Rey share one boat while Paige, Rose, and Kaydel share the other. 

“Can I ask you something?” Rey asks.

“If you like.”

Rey hesitates. “Why did you recruit my husband for a suicide mission?”

Phasma is quiet for a long time. “He’s a brilliant biologist.”

“But you knew he was married. That he loved his job. Why?”

Phasma is quiet again. Then, “Do you want to know the truth?”

Rey feels a chill run down her spine. “Yes.”

Phasma sighs. “He volunteered to go on this mission.”

Rey goes cold all over. “He did?”

Phasma nods. “After the first few expeditions went in and never came out, we made it volunteer-only. Your husband knew the risks associated with it.”

Rey swallows. “But he went in anyway.”

“His was the first all-scientist expedition.” Phasma sounds oddly...soothing. “We had hope that scientists would fare better than our military men. And we were right--he made it out. Already, we’re starting to understand it better.”

“Why-” Rey starts to ask, and then her voice cracks. “Why do you think he went in?”

“Honestly?” Phasma shrugs. “You described it as a suicide mission, but I don’t think it’s as reductive as that. It’s...self-destruction.”

“Aren’t they the same thing?”

Phasma shakes her head. “Almost none of us commit suicide. Almost all of us self-destruct in some way, in some part of our lives. We drink or we smoke. We destabilize the good job or the happy marriage. These aren’t decisions, they’re impulses. In fact, you’re probably better equipped to explain this than I am.”

Rey blinks at her. “What do you mean?”

“You’re a biologist,” Phasma says in an obvious sort of tone. “Isn’t self-destruction coded into us?”

Rey understands. “Senescence is a genetic fault,” she agrees. “But I wouldn’t say we’re programmed to self-destruct.”

Phasma gives her a mysterious sort of smile. “Aren’t we?” She nods at the boat behind them. “Why would they volunteer for this mission, then?”

Rey doesn’t know what to say to that.

“The Tico sisters lost their parents,” Phasma goes on. “Co Connix miscarried in her second trimester and broke up with her partner shortly after. There’s no light at the end of the tunnel for these women.” Phasma tilts her head. “And I’m guessing by your presence here that there’s no light at the end of the tunnel for you, either.”

Rey swallows. “Yes, there is.”

Phasma laughs unkindly. “If you say so. But joining a suicide mission, as you call it, is not the action of a woman who believes her husband will pull through. Or...” She pauses. “Perhaps it is. Perhaps there was a rift in the marriage, something that made you both uncomfortable around each other. Perhaps Dr. Solo volunteered because he wanted to get away from you, and then you volunteered because you were afraid he’d pull through, and then you’d be stuck together, ‘til death do you part--”

“Shut up!” Rey shouts, standing up. The boat shifts under her but stays afloat as she stares down at Phasma, breathing hard.

“Everything okay?” Paige calls from the other boat. 

“Rey,” Phasma says calmly. “You need to  _ control _ yourself.”

And like walking into the Shimmer, Rey forgets everything that comes after that.


	4. Immolation

Rey wakes up in her tent. She feels just like she did that first time, groggy and disoriented, and she wonders if three or four more days have passed since she was last conscious. She grabs her rifle and crawls out of her tent. Phasma’s the only one up and moving around, and Rey is half tempted to go back to her tent. She hasn’t forgotten her conversation with the other woman--but she has, apparently, forgotten everything after it. 

“How much time has passed?”

“Going off my rations, I’d guess a couple days,” Phasma says indifferently. 

“That’s a relief.” At least it hasn’t been quite as long as the first time, though the idea that they’re missing time at all is an unsettling one. 

She’s saved from having to make further conversation when Kaydel pushes out of her tent, looking as groggy and disoriented as Rey. “Where are we?” the blonde asks, looking around. 

“Don’t know, but Phasma thinks a couple of days have passed.”

“Son of a bitch,” Kaydel mutters. 

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

“The swamp.”

“Yeah,” Rey sighs. “Me too.” 

“What if we didn’t keep heading south?” Kaydel asks in a small voice. “What if we went the wrong direction and now we’re even further from the coast?”

“We’re not,” Phasma says.

“How do you know?” Kaydel squeaks.

“I just do.” Phasma seems tired. Irritated. 

“What’s going on?” Paige asks, coming out of her own tent. Rose pokes her head out of her tent, too. 

“Couple more days have passed,” Rey says. 

“Jesus,” Paige mutters. “This gonna happen every time we wake up?”

“Let’s hope not.” 

“Let’s keep moving,” Phasma says. “Before we waste more of the day.”

“How much of the day have we wasted?” Rey asks.

Phasma doesn’t answer.

The other woman is...strange. Rey gets the odd feeling that Phasma knows more than they do. Not just about the expedition, but about what transpires in those blank periods of time Rey and the others can’t remember. Almost as if the Shimmer doesn’t affect Phasma. 

Which is impossible…

...isn’t it?

They spend the better part of the day just walking. They stop every now and then, but Phasma always seems irritated when they do, always pressing them to keep going. Grudgingly, Rey can’t blame her; the more progress they make, the sooner they get to the coast, which means they will literally be out of the woods. Then they just have to get to the lighthouse. After that, whatever they find, it’s just a matter of staying along the coast until they reach the perimeter wall. 

It all sounds so simple, laid out like that. So how could multiple expeditions not have been able to do it? What lies waiting for them? 

.

It’s late afternoon when they come across what looks like a cave, but a set of steps go down into it. 

“Should we…?”

“Let’s check it out,” Phasma decides. “Johnson, you’ve proven yourself with a rifle; let’s have you and Co Connix come with me. Tico sisters, you’re on watch.”

No one looks particularly pleased with this arrangement, but no one fights Phasma on it; the Tico sisters shoulder their rifles as Rey, Kaydel, and Phasma all head down the stairs. Rey leads the way, rifle at the ready; Kaydel follows close behind, using her flashlight to illuminate their path. The stairs move in a slight spiral, down and down in a reverse tower. 

“What do you think this is?” Kaydel breathes.

“I don’t know,” Rey admits. “It looks like a cave, but there’s no way the stairs are natural. These are man-made. Is there any record of this pre-Shimmer?” she asks Phasma.

The other woman shakes her head. “No.”

As they move further down, Rey begins to notice something strange. There are vines on the wall, but they loop almost like letters. The deeper they go, the surer Rey is of what she’s seeing.

“Look at this,” she says, turning on her own flashlight and pointing it at the tunnel wall. 

The other two turn, looking at it.

“Are those...letters?” Kaydel asks dubiously. 

“It looks like it.” Rey squints. “It looks like…‘darkness.’”

Kaydel shivers. “I don’t like this.” 

“Keep it together,” Phasma says in a grudging sort of voice. 

“But what’s causing this?” Rey murmurs, stepping closer. “What could make plants  _ do _ this?”

“I don’t know,” Phasma admits, sounding less grudging as Rey examines the vine. “Do you think a person did this?”

“It’s like the rest of this tunnel,” Rey says. “It looks like a natural formation, but there’s no way it could be.” 

“You think someone did this?” Phasma asks. 

“Well...I don’t know,” Rey admits. “I mean, an English-speaking person would have to, wouldn’t they? But vines just don’t grow like this, even with careful cultivation. The way they’re formed...it  _ looks _ natural, but I don’t know how it could be. But I don’t know how it could be man-made, either.”

Had Ben seen this? What had he made of it?

“I really don’t like this,” Kaydel whines. “This is fucking insane, this can’t be  _ real _ .”

“Calm yourself, Connix,” Phasma growls. 

Rey leans closer to the vine, trying to figure out if someone has maybe found an adhesive to stick the vine to the dirt wall or if--

She presses on part of the vine, and a small puff of spores releases into the air.

Spores that Rey accidentally breathes in before she can stop herself.

She glances at Phasma and Kaydel to see if they’ve noticed anything, but thankfully, Kaydel is still descending into a meltdown while Phasma tries, to little avail, to keep her calm. Rey steps back, forcing herself to breathe normally. They were just some spores. Just some tiny spores from vines shaped like English letters.

That’s all.

She isn’t going to freak out over this. She’s been breathing the air in the Shimmer for days now--if she was going to get sick or infected or whatever, it would have happened by now.

_ Right? _

“Maybe we should head back,” she says as Kaydel starts to cry.

Phasma looks at the other woman in disgust. “I guess we have to.” She leads the way back up the stairs. 

Kaydel falls back to talk to Rey. “Doesn’t this freak you out?” she asks. 

Rey glances at the vine letters. “Yes.” But mostly, it makes her curious. She wants to come back for a second look. Assuming she hasn’t grown a second head in the meantime.

_ You’re fine _ , she tells herself.  _ You’re not going to get sick or mutate just because you breathed in some spores. _

The sun is hanging low in the sky by the time they reach the top.

“Let’s billet here,” Phasma orders. 

They pitch their tents a few meters from the tunnel. Kaydel is still freaking out, practically crying now, so Phasma has them all sit in a line. 

“You need to get yourselves under  _ control _ ,” she says, and then pauses.

Rey glances at the others. They’ve all gone slack, eyes glazed over as they listen to Phasma. The word has had some kind of effect on them, some effect Rey doesn’t understand.

“You are going to go to bed,” Phasma says in a sing-song tone. “You will eat one protein bar and then go to bed.”

And to Rey’s surprise, the other women go to their tents. 

_ She’s hypnotizing them _ , Rey realizes.  _ She’s been hypnotizing  _ us. But why doesn’t it work on Rey?  _ Maybe it’s the spores. Maybe they did something to me.  _

“Rey,” Phasma says in that sing-song tone. “Eat one protein bar and go to bed.”

Rey makes the split decision to pretend the hypnotism works on her. This way, she can see what Phasma’s doing while they’re under hypnosis. She drifts to her tent, zipping it up behind her. It’s quiet outside, still, as Phasma waits to see if they’re doing what she commands. Rey hears the crinkling of wrappers and reaches for her pack, pulling out a protein bar. She munches quietly, contemplating the predicament she finds herself in.

So, Phasma’s been hypnotizing them. That explains why there are gaps in their memories, why two to four days can pass without their knowledge. Phasma’s been keeping them in hypnosis, probably guiding them deeper into the Shimmer while they’re in their hypnotized state.

_ But why _ ? What if she needs them? What if something attacks them? Like that alligator. Even if they can fire guns in their hypnotized state, Phasma has to be in complete control.

_ Control _ . That’s the word she’s been using. It’s the last word Rey remembers from the swamp, and now there’s a vague, distant memory of Phasma saying something as soon as they’d walked into the Shimmer. It’s what she’d said to get the other women to listen to her.  _ Control _ .

Is it really the spores that have made Rey immune to what she has to say? Or is it maybe because she spent less time in training than the others? 

_ Calm down _ , she tells herself.  _ That’s it, it was just because I only had five days to train, they had months, it isn’t because of the spores, it isn’t because I inhaled something from this place and now I’m going to die-- _

She shoves the thought from her mind. She’ll be fine. And even if she won’t be, there’s no point worrying about it now. She pulls out her inflatable mattress, getting ready for bed. She’ll worry about this later. For now, she needs to sleep.

.

She wakes once in the night when she hears a soft, strangled cry. Someone crying out in their sleep, perhaps. Or a creature. Some new horror waiting outside their tents.

Rey screws her eyes shut and forces herself not to think about it.

.

In the morning, Phasma wakes them by clapping her hands three times and saying, “Time to be  _ alert _ .”

This, Rey decides, must be her word for bringing them out of hypnosis. Even so, she lies still and waits for the sounds of the others rousing from their sleep before she, too, gets up. 

Something is off. It takes Rey a moment to place it, but when she does, she feels a chill run down her spine.

“Where’s Kaydel?”

Paige and Rose also look around, eyes wide and faces pale.

“Connix went back,” Phasma says. 

“She went  _ back _ ?” Paige asks sharply. “Why would she do that?”

“She couldn’t handle the Shimmer,” Phasma says indifferently.

Rey has a bad feeling about this. She wonders if it has anything to do with the strangled cry she’d heard last night. Had Kaydel seen something? Had the writing on the wall gotten to her? 

“Let’s pack up and keep moving,” Phasma says.

“What? No!” Paige shouts. “Kaydel is  _ alone _ out there! Every time we fall asleep,  _ days _ pass--she’ll be lost and disoriented without us!”

“That was her choice,” Phasma says in a lofty, unfeeling sort of tone. “Now let’s go.”

The women exchange a look. None of them seem convinced, but what can they do? Turn around and try to find Kaydel? They don’t even remember how they got to the last campsite from the swamp. There’s nothing they can do but move forward. 

They pack up the campsite and then head south, following Rey’s directions again. All the while, Rey keeps thinking of Kaydel. If entire groups of people haven’t been able to make it out of the Shimmer, there’s no way a single person can. Although...Ben had gotten out. Had he been on his own? Was that the key? To get out of the Shimmer, one had to be alone? But at what cost? If Kaydel is anything like Ben…

...she’ll be in bad shape by the time she makes it out. 

It’s mid-afternoon when the trees begin to thin and they can see the ruins of a building ahead of them. 

“This was the First Order’s headquarters before the Shimmer swallowed it,” Phasma tells them. “Should be a good place to billet.”

They trudge on towards the gate, which has been left wide open in the absence of people to keep in or out. The four of them walk through the gate and across the yard. The grass comes up to their shins, and all around them are more of those strange hybrid flowers. 

Before they reach the building, Rey hears a click. She readies her rifle, the others following suit.

“What is it?” Phasma whispers.

“I heard something. In there.” She nods to the building. 

The door in front of them pushes open, a rifle slipping through the crack. Oddly enough, the sight makes Rey relax. Whatever they’re facing is a person, not a creature. No alligator-shark hybrid, no potentially venomous vine. It’s a person.

“Who are you?” Phasma asks authoritatively.

The door opens wider. Rey gasps.

Because staring right back at her is Ben.


	5. Immersion

How long they gape at each other, Rey doesn’t know. Dimly, she hears Phasma muttering, “That’s not possible,” behind her.

Finally, Rose asks, “What’s going on?”

Rey swallows. “That’s what I’d like to know.” 

“What  _ you’d _ like to know?” Ben asks incredulously. “What are you doing here?”

“What are  _ you _ doing here?” she retorts. “I saw you, you came back to the house, you were  _ dying _ …”

Ben shakes his head. “Rey, I’ve...I’ve been here. This whole time.” He swallows. “Whatever came home...that wasn’t me.”

It isn’t cold, but Rey shivers anyway. “How do I know that that wasn’t the real you?” she whispers. “And the person standing in front of me isn’t the copy?”

He stares back at her. “I guess you can’t know,” he says at last.

Rey drops the rifle and throws her arms around him.

He feels right in a way the other Ben hadn’t. Still lean, and he still doesn’t smell quite like himself, but she knows, instinctively, that this is the right Ben. He wraps his arms around her, holding her tight, leaning down to bury his nose in her hair. 

“Will someone tell me what the  _ hell _ is going on?” Paige demands in an uncharacteristically shrill voice. 

Rey steps back but keeps one arm around Ben. “This is my husband,” she informs the Tico sisters. “He was on the last expedition before us. He’s the one you heard so much about, the one who came out of the Shimmer close to death. But he’s...here.”

“How is that possible?” Rose breathes. 

A shadow falls over Ben’s face. “I can tell you, but…”

“But what?”

He shakes his head. “You’re not ready. Not yet.”

“What does that mean?” Rey starts to ask, but Phasma steps forward.

“Can we come in?” she asks briskly. “It’s not entirely safe out here.”

“It’s not entirely safe in here,” Ben mutters, but he steps aside to let them through. Paige eyes him suspiciously but says nothing; Phasma gives him an almost appreciative gaze as she follows the Tico sisters inside. Rey stays close to Ben, squeezing his hand as soon as he closes and bars the door. 

“How is this possible?” she whispers while the others move deeper into the building. 

He kisses her hand. “That you’re here?”

“That  _ you’re _ here.” She gazes up at him. “Ben, there was...another  _ you _ . There  _ is _ another you, lying in a First Order hospital bed.”

“That’s not the real me,” Ben says, shaking his head. “This place...distorts things.”

“But it wasn’t in this place,” she tries to tell him. “It was in our  _ home _ .”

“What’s going  _ on _ ?” Paige demands, coming back to where Ben and Rey are still standing by the door. “What the hell is this? Someone  _ explain _ it to me.”

Rey glances at Ben. “It’s...sort of a long story.”

“We have time,” Paige says coolly.

They gather in the mess hall, where Ben, it seems, has been staying.

“This is the most secure structure in the Shimmer,” he tells them. “But even that isn’t saying a lot.”

“What do you mean?” Rose asks quietly.

Ben glances at Rey. “It has a way of...permeating things.” 

“Permeating  _ how _ ?” Paige asks. 

Ben takes a deep breath. “My expedition was made up entirely of scientists. Immediately, we realized how...unusual this place is. I’m sure you have, too. Over time, we began to notice...changes. In ourselves.” He takes a deep breath. “There were four of us. The first had something...moving...inside him. We cut him open and found something inside him. I don’t know how to explain it. It was unlike anything we’d ever seen before. It...destroyed him.” He swallows. “The second was...well, we  _ think _ he was taken. He was out on patrol and we heard him shout and then...nothing. He never showed back up. The third said that he couldn’t take it. We made it to the lighthouse, and then he ran to the top and jumped off.”

“And then there was one,” Phasma murmurs. “What did you find at the lighthouse?”

Ben hesitates. “It’s...hard to explain.”

“Try us,” Paige says, eyes hard.

Ben shakes his head. “There’s something...down there. And it...destroys...and creates...I can’t explain it. It’s the kind of thing you have to experience to believe.”

“So let us experience it,” Phasma says. “Let’s head out to the lighthouse.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Ben says before she can get too far. 

Phasma fixes him with a look. “And why not?”

“Like I said, that thing destroys,” he warns. “You won’t know what you’re up against.”

“Well, if you could survive it, why can’t we?” 

Ben runs his hands through his hair in frustration. “Look, that thing will change you. Or, I guess make another you. You don’t want to mess with it.”

“No one said anything about messing with it. Our objective is to reach the lighthouse--”

“Our objective was to find the last expedition,” Rose says quietly.

Everyone turns to look at her.

Rose takes a deep breath. “The first expedition’s objective was to reach the lighthouse, and every expedition after that has been a recovery mission. If we couldn’t locate any previous expeditions, then our objective was to reach the lighthouse. That’s what we were told in training.”

Phasma looks positively murderous. “Yes,” she grinds out, “but we didn’t recover the last expedition, did we?”

“We recovered the only surviving member of it,” Rose argues. “And if what he says is true...can’t we go back?”

“You’re obviously very tired,” Phasma says. “And you need to  _ con _ \--”

“Let’s stay here for the night,” Rey interrupts.

Phasma turns her murderous gaze on Rey, who staunchly ignores it. She doesn’t want to fake being hypnotized, especially if Ben is here. Will the hypnosis work on him too, or just her group? She doesn’t want to find out the hard way. “We only have a few hours of sun left; might as well billet here for the night and figure out what we’re going to do in the morning.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Paige says.

“Yes,” Phasma says coolly. “Sounds like a plan.”

They set down their packs in the mess hall and start setting up their beds. 

“What’s happened since I left?” Ben asks. 

“Nothing,” Rey says honestly. “I just...missed you.”

He smiles at her, and the sight is so beautiful it nearly makes her cry. “I missed you too.” 

She kisses him for the first time in over a year. He tastes like Ben--like home. 

“Don’t stay away so long next time,” she chastises softly. 

“It’s only been a few weeks,” he says in the same soft, chastising voice.

Rey leans back. “What?”

He blinks at her. “I said it’s only been a few weeks.”

Rey shakes her head. “Ben...you’ve been gone for a  _ year _ .”

Ben stares at her. “ _ What _ ?”

“You left a year ago,” she tells him slowly. 

Ben’s stare is uncomprehending. “That’s  _ impossible _ . I may have lost track of a few days, but a whole  _ year _ …Look.” He opens his backpack and starts pulling out rations. “We had enough for six months. There are still enough for  _ weeks _ . The rations don’t reflect a year.”

Rey examines them and sees that he’s right--the rations he’s laid out should feed him for weeks, months to come. They don’t show that he’s been here for a year.

“Maybe...this really is a different dimension,” she wonders. “And time...passes differently here. Maybe a few days here is...weeks in the real world.”

“You think this is a different dimension?” he asks, brow furrowed. 

“It’s a theory,” she says, but they both know she believes it. “I mean, nothing works in the Shimmer, not even the magnets, and there are all these hybrids in the flora and fauna, and if time passes differently in here…”

“Guys?” They hear Rose’s voice from another room. 

Grabbing their rifles, Rey and Ben follow the sound of the other women’s voices floating down the corridor. 

They find them in what looks like an old swimming pool, all tile and big windows. Rose, Paige, and Phasma are all in the knee-high water left from before, staring up at…

Well, Rey isn’t really sure  _ what _ they’re staring at. It looks like primitive art, only...not. A man’s lower half sits against the wall, and it’s as if something has exploded out of him. Some fuzzy kind of vines or roots or...something. High up on the wall is the man’s upper half, more of the vines spilling out of his ribcage. His face has been all hollowed out so that he looks like a skeleton, and purple curls surround his crown like a halo. 

“That’s Peyton,” Ben says quietly. “The first one down.”

Rose yelps, stumbling back through the water. Rey and Ben pull her up, Rey wrapping an arm around the other woman.

“Whatever was inside him did that?” Paige asks, unable to tear her eyes from Peyton. 

“It must have,” Ben says. 

Paige lurches to the side, heaving up the contents of her belly. 

“Let’s go somewhere else,” Rose begs. “Please.”

“It’s too late to find another shelter now,” Phasma says, indifferent as always. “Besides, this is easily the most protected place in the Shimmer. You’d be an idiot to try and find somewhere else.”

Rose starts to cry. “ _ Please _ .”

“It’s okay,” Rey says, rubbing her arm. “Let’s go for a walk.” She steers the shorter woman from the room, taking her outside so they can walk around the building. Rose is crying, wiping her tears on her sleeve as they walk.

“I don’t want to stay here,” Rose whimpers. 

“I know,” Rey says, and she does. “But Phasma’s right--this place is safer than anywhere else in the Shimmer, and it’s too late to look for another shelter now.” 

Rose chokes on a sob.

“It’s okay,” Rey says again. “We’ll just stay here tonight, and then tomorrow we’ll head back. Head home.”

Rose nods, wiping more tears away. 

But Rey has to admit to a deep curiosity about the lighthouse. She wants to know what Ben’s talking about, about how whatever’s there destroys and creates. What could so terrify her husband?

It’s nearly dark by the time Rey and Rose go back inside. The other three have already set up their mattresses, something Rey and Rose also do. Rey sets hers up beside Ben, smiling as he helps her. 

While they sit in a circle and eat their rations, Rey explains to the group at large the events of the last year or so, starting with Ben heading to the Shimmer. She tastefully glosses over the fact that he’d volunteered to go on a suicide mission and her depression in his absence, focusing instead on the facts. When she finishes her story, Paige still seems suspicious, which Rey supposes makes sense--it  _ is _ odd that they’ve run into each other here, after everything. 

Phasma, who already knows all the details of Ben and Rey’s separation and reunion, looks bored throughout the storytelling. Everything seems to bore Phasma. It’s like she has an agenda that none of them know about--the hypnosis is just a part of it. It reminds Rey that she still doesn’t know why Phasma is on this expedition. Has she lost someone? Is she an addict? Is there no light at the end of the tunnel for her? Somehow, Rey doubts it. Phasma operates like a woman desperate to reach the end of the tunnel. 

They divide the group into watch rotations and then head to bed. Phasma has the first watch, and she heads outside with her rifle while everyone else crawls onto their beds.

Now that Rey is really alone with Ben for the first time in a year, she becomes starkly aware of...well, being alone together. They lie side by side, staring at each other for a long time. 

Oddly, Rey feels a flush of desire. Maybe it isn’t so odd, considering how long it’s been since they last had sex. 

Ben seems to have similar thoughts. He strokes Rey’s arm, his hand trailing down to her breast.

It’s all she can do to hold back a groan. “Not here,” she whispers as softly as possible. 

He points to the ceiling. Upstairs. She nods, indicating that they should wait until the others are asleep. 

It takes an agonizingly long time for the Tico sisters to drop off to sleep, and even when they do, Rey isn’t fully convinced that they’ll stay asleep. She and Ben ease off their beds and creep out of the mess hall, down the corridor, and up a flight of stairs. 

Ben takes her into an office, closing the door as she begins stripping off her clothes. It feels grim and methodical until Ben touches her, and then it’s like a fire has been lit inside her. She isn’t even fully undressed when he slides inside her, muffing their groans in each other’s shoulders. His thrusts are deep and fast, though he thankfully waits until she comes on his fingers before he allows himself to finish inside her. She remembers that last time they’d had sex, when she’d hoped for a baby, and locks her legs tight around him. 


	6. Dissolution

It’s late when they hear a scream. Everyone wakes at once, leaping from their beds and grabbing their rifles as they thunder outside. Something— _ something _ —is mauling poor Paige, whose screams rend the air. Rey raises her rifle, but she hesitates. The thing—a bear, maybe?—is moving too much, and so is Paige. She could accidentally shoot Paige. 

Phasma has no such reservations. She opens fire, hitting both Paige and the bear. 

“Stop it!” Rose screams. “You’re shooting Paige!  _ Stop _ !”

But Phasma doesn’t stop, not until Rose tackles her. Before Ben and Rey can stop Rose, she tears off towards Paige, shouting at the bear. It pauses in its mauling of Paige and heads straight for the other woman. Rey raises her rifle and fires at the bear; it stumbles but keeps running. Ben adds his rifle, both of them firing as the great, shaggy thing makes a beeline for Rose.

They manage to take it down, but not before it swipes an enormous paw and knocks Rose onto her side. It lowers its snout to her just as Phasma joins her volley to Rey and Ben’s, and then it collapses on top of Rose. 

It takes all three of them to pull her out from under the beast. Her breathing is strained and shallow. “Paige,” she rasps.

Rey and Ben trade glances. Even if she’d survived the mauling, there’s no way Paige survived Phasma’s gunfire. Nevertheless, as soon as they’ve freed Rose from her prison, Rey gets up to check on Paige.

The other woman is certainly dead, all bloody and riddled with bites and bullets, but Rey still checks for breath and a pulse. She isn’t surprised when she doesn’t find either. 

Making her way back to the other three, she shakes her head. Rose, propped up against Ben, lets out one final gasp and then slumps against him, eyes glassy and unseeing. 

.

“We should go back,” Ben says. “Go home.”

They’re sitting in the mess hall, the early morning light creeping in through the windows. None of them have slept since Paige and Rose’s deaths only a few hours before. 

Kaydel, Paige, Rose. Rey wonders who, if any of them, will be next.

“We have to make it to the lighthouse,” Phasma says. “That has always been our objective.”

“But  _ why _ ?” Ben asks. “Why, when I’ve told you what’s waiting? It’ll destroy you.”

“It didn’t destroy you,” Phasma points out.

Ben swallows. “I’m not so sure of that.”

“Look, we’re only a day or two from the coast,” Rey says. “And we’re  _ days  _ away from the entry point.”

“You want to get out by going deeper in?” Ben asks incredulously.

“If you like.”

“I don’t  _ like _ ,” Ben says. “I don’t  _ like _ any of this! Two people are dead!”

“I know.” And she does—she hasn’t been able to get the image of their pale, bloody faces out of her head. “And I think that if we don’t want anyone else to die, we should go to the coast.”

Ben regards her curiously. 

“You think this is the best way out?” Ben questions her. 

She nods. “I do.”

And truthfully, it probably is the best way out. But it also satisfies her desire to see what exactly Ben is talking about. What creates and destroys? Why is he so afraid of it? 

“I don’t have time for this,” Phasma says, surprising both of them. “I’m going to the lighthouse. You can stay here if you want. Actually, I don’t much care what either of you do. I came here for the lighthouse, and I’ll be damned if either of you stop me.”

They watch in mute shock as she packs up her things and storms out of the mess hall. 

Ben and Rey exchange looks. 

“Should we…?”

“Let her go,” Rey says, suddenly feeling exhausted. “There’s nothing we can do.” 

“Rey, are you  _ sure _ the coast is the best way out?”

“Yes,” she says. “Ben, we’ve already lost three people on our expedition, and you’ve lost all of yours—why wouldn’t the coast be safer?”

He looks a little relieved, but only a little. 

“Can I ask you something?” she asks him. 

He nods. “Anything.”

“Why didn’t you try to leave the Shimmer?”

“I was...” he says, confused. “I was afraid to be near the coast after...after what happened at the lighthouse. I was trying to go back to the entry point. I’d just reached the base a little before you did.”

The passage of time here still stuns her. How is it  _ possible _ ?

“Can I ask you something else?” At his nod, she takes a deep breath. “Why did you volunteer for a suicide mission?”

“I didn’t.”

She blinks up at him. “But…”

He shakes his head. “Snoke, the director, also funds my research. He told me it would be a once in a lifetime opportunity, and he never told me about the history of the Shimmer. I didn’t find out about the other expeditions until after I got inside.”

Rey sucks in a breath. “But...Phasma said—“

“You’re gonna listen to her?” he asks in a hard voice. “Rey, that woman is insane. She doesn’t care about getting out of here, she only cares about getting to the lighthouse. She doesn’t even care about the people on the expedition—we saw her shoot Paige last night.”

That is true. And Rey’s seen firsthand how Phasma hypnotizes them to get what she wants. “But why would she outright lie?”

“Why not?” He shrugs. “She’s a sociopath.”

It’s never really occurred to Rey like that before. She bites her lip. “She seemed...never mind.” She feels stupid. 

Ben draws his arms around her. “First Order doesn’t care about who goes inside; they just want someone to go in the hopes that one of them will get out.”

Rey feels tears prick her eyes. “Do you think there’s really a way out?”

“My other self found a way out, didn’t he?” He shrugs again. “Why can’t we?” When Rey doesn’t say anything, he pulls her towards their beds. “Come on—we need to rest.”

But Rey can’t rest. Not now, not knowing what she does. She lies there, waiting for Ben to fall asleep, and then she creeps out from under his arm. He doesn’t move, too exhausted to stir from his slumber. 

Rey grabs her pack and her rifle and then walks out. 

She walks for almost the entire day. She stops once or twice to pee, but never for long—she has to catch up to Phasma and stay far ahead of Ben. 

On the way, she sees animals that shouldn’t exist. White deer with red dew-drop antlers. Long, transparent tadpoles. Birds of every color, looking more and more like their dinosaur ancestors. This place is so beautiful. The light at the end of the tunnel for those who have none. 

.

It’s mid-afternoon by the time she reaches the coast. At first glance, it’s like any other beach, but a closer inspection shows Rey that it’s very, very different. 

Glass-like trees sparkle in the sunlight, and as she gets closer to the lighthouse, she sees more and more bones, laid out in a pattern that might mean something. She follows Phasma’s footprints in the sand to the lighthouse, at the bottom of which she sees the crumpled body of a man, a dog’s carcass, and Phasma.

The other woman is clearly injured, though from what, Rey can’t say. An animal, maybe. 

She kneels in front of Phasma, who offers her a bloody smile. “So you came after all.”

“I did.” Rey tilts her head. “What’s going on here? Really?”

“I don’t know what you mean—“

“Cut the bullshit.”

Phasma looks almost admiring. “What’s really going on here is that your husband isn’t the first person to leave the Shimmer. I am.”

Rey goes cold.

“Technically, it’s the director,” Phasma goes on. 

“Snoke?”

She nods. “Snoke. He was in the perimeter when the meteorite hit. They cleared him, but...he’s never been the same.” She smiles. “I went on my own after the first few expeditions didn’t make it back. I was only in here for three days, but when I came out, they told me it had been three weeks.”

“What happened in those three days?” Rey asks, desperately curious.

Phasma shrugs. “Nothing, really. I walked around, I observed things. It didn’t seem that special to me. And then I left and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I became obsessed with it. I never told anyone, not even the director.” She pauses. “And then I was diagnosed with cancer. They told me I had maybe two years left in me. I knew, somehow, that it was this place that had done it to me.”

“So it  _ is _ a suicide mission,” Rey murmurs.

Phasma shakes her head. “Don’t you remember what your husband said? It creates and destroys. I’m already being destroyed. Why wouldn’t it create something from me?”

The thought is oddly terrifying to Rey. Does Phasma want a second version of herself, like Ben? Does she want to live forever, even if it isn’t really her? 

“Why did you lie about my husband?” she asks, steeling herself.

Phasma closes her eyes. “It wasn’t a lie. He agreed to go.”

“After your boss told him he had to.”

Phasma shrugs. “I needed your cooperation. I knew I wouldn’t get it if you believed my side was the enemy.”

Rey grips her rifle, prepared. “Why do you hypnotize us?”

Plasma’s eyes fly open. “Annihilation,” she says in a commanding voice. When Rey does nothing, she repeats again, frantically, “Annihilation! Annihilation!”

“If that’s a command, it doesn’t work,” Rey says. “Your commands haven’t worked on me since the tower.”

“The tower?”

“The spiral stairs in the ground.” 

Phasma closes her eyes again. “So you’ve been pretending.”

“Yes.”

“I see. Does that mean you know I killed Connix?”

Rey feels cold again. “Yes,” she lies, hoping to get more out of the other woman. 

Phasma heaves a sigh. “She was weak. I tried to get her to read the writing on the wall, but even through the hypnosis, she panicked. It was irritating.”

Rey feels that coldness again. “I see.”

“It was she that attacked me, you know. She’s...different now. I know she’s dead, but it was like...she’d become a wild dog. I can’t explain it. But it had her eyes, it... _ sounded  _ like her. She was crying again, and then she attacked me, so I killed her a second time.”

“How?”

“I gave her the order.  _ Annihilation _ . When you hear it, you’re supposed to kill yourself.” She opens her eyes to regard Rey. “I know why you’re here. You’re just as curious as I am. You want to see that meteorite, same as I do.”

Rey hates herself for saying, “Yes.” 

“Then help me inside, and we can do what we came here to do.”

The thought repulses Rey. She’d rather leave Phasma out here to suffer. 

But some part of her knows it will be worse for her if she does. Somehow, she knows Phasma will punish her for that. So she loops an arm around the other woman’s back and helps her to her feet. Together, they stumble inside. 


	7. Acceptance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are--the end! I know this is a bit of a departure from what I normally write, but Annihilation is easily one of my favorite movies and I was obsessed with writing a reylo au for it. My next fic will be more in my style.
> 
> Thanks for reading!

The lighthouse is covered in vines as bleached as the building itself, but the door is uncovered. The two women make their way inside, Phasma leaning on Rey as she hobbles along. 

The first thing Rey notices is the gaping black hole ahead of them. Bleached white vines spill out of it, wrapping up around the stairs, but Rey isn’t looking up there. 

She’s looking into the hole. 

“Down,” Phasma breathes. “We have to go down there.”

Rey nods. Slowly, she lets go of Phasma and helps the other woman inside. Then, she follows. 

It’s all dark and silvery down the hole, its high walls made of a reflective surface that’s too dark to really reflect anything.

As she crawls, Phasma stumbles over something and skids down the incline until she lands in the flat clearing at the silver’s center. 

“Dr. Phasma,” Rey calls, hurrying after her. 

Phasma grips her stomach. “It’s inside me now,” she says, sounding like a child. 

“What’s inside you?” Rey asks, thinking madly of the spores. 

“It’s not like us.” Phasma gestures urgently. “It’s  _ un _ like us.” Her eyes are wide and wild. “I don’t know what it wants...or  _ if _ it wants.” And then she throws back her head and becomes consumed.

With what, Rey doesn’t know, only that she does. It’s like fire but not, some bright substance that swirls in the air around her until there’s no trace left of the woman called Phasma. 

Rey watches as the bright specks dancing before her eyes divide like so many cells, and then they all cluster together to form a giant pod. The pod opens before Rey, humming something that isn’t music but couldn’t be anything else. This, she understands instinctively, is the heart of the Shimmer, the beacon that created this strange new dimension in her world. It’s like staring at God. 

And then something happens. A single speck appears in the center of the pod, and like so many cells, it divides, over and over, until it forms a human shape. The pod slowly evaporates, leaving only the oil-slick human shape, beautiful and terrifying in both its humanness and non-humanness. Too real to be unreal, too unreal to be real, it’s some horrible thing in between.

Rey runs. She doesn’t know why, but the thing terrifies her.

_ It destroys and it creates _ . 

Is this what Ben saw? What made him so afraid? Why, oh why hadn’t she listened to him?

She crawls out of the hole only to find the thing waiting for her in the lighthouse. She stumbles to the side and the thing does the same. Curious, she takes a series of steps, forward and side to side, and the thing imitates her. Wondering how far this game will go, Rey runs for the door. 

The thing not only runs after her but presses down against her, making it impossible for her to open the door. It’s suffocating her, pressing the air from her.

Rey gives in.

.

When she wakes, minutes or hours could have passed—she has no way of knowing. She’s lying on the ground, and beside her lies the thing. Slowly, she pushes herself to her feet, the thing doing the same. 

_ It won’t stop _ , she realizes.  _ It will do whatever I do until it  _ is  _ me. And then it will go out into the world just like Ben’s clone did.  _

Slowly, Rey reaches into her pocket. The thing mimics the action, holding out its hand to meet hers. It’s slick and smooth under her skin as she presses its hands around one of the only weapons she’d brought with her. As their hands meet, the thing morphs, turning slowly into her. Rey pulls the pin of the grenade, waits a long moment, and then bolts for the door.

She doesn’t look back. She runs out to the beach, praying to a god she doesn’t believe in to save her. 

She stops short when she sees him.

Ben.

Standing on the beach, looking at her. 

She runs to him, and he runs to her, until he catches her in his arms and swings her up in the air. 

“Why’d you do that?” he asks weakly. “Why’d you run off like that?”

“Because I wanted to face it,” she whispers. “I wanted to fight it.”

Ben holds her closer. 

Behind her, the lighthouse becomes consumed in flames. It burns away everything—the bones out front, the trees of glass, even the sky above them, burning away the Shimmer to reveal the night sky. There’s no rainbow here, no strange mist distorting the sun. It’s just...the sky. 

They stand like that, holding each other, until the first helicopter finds them. 

.

At the base, she’s stripped and hosed down until her skin is red. They give her medical scrubs like the kind they gave her when she first came in, and then they take her to a room of sturdy plexiglass. First Order scientists crowd around outside as two men in hazmat suits enter the room, bringing her a glass of water.

“Hello, Rey,” the first one says. “My name is Poe Dameron, and this is my partner, Finn Storm. We’d appreciate it if you could tell us what happened in the Shimmer.”

Rey tells them everything, from Ben’s return home to the grenade burning down the Shimmer. She tells them all they want to know and more, and then she takes a long sip of water.

“So it was alien,” Dameron concludes. “Can you describe its form?”

Rey thinks for a long moment. “No,” she says at last. 

“Was it carbon based or…?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t know.”

“What did it want?”

She shakes her head again. “I don’t think it  _ wanted _ anything.”

“But it attacked you,” Dameron says in confusion. 

“It mirrored me,” she corrects. “ _ I _ attacked  _ it _ .”

“It came here for a reason,” he insists. “It was mutating our environment. It was destroying everything.”

“It wasn’t destroying,” she says.  _ Few of us commit suicide. Most of us self-destruct. _ “It was making something new.”

.

They hold her in the containment unit for hours. During that time, they tell her four things.

The first is that Ben is safe. He’s in isolation, just like Rey, and his story lines up with hers.

The second is that the lighthouse is now ash, with no life forms detected. Phasma and whatever else was there with Rey are dead. 

The third thing is that the clone of Ben died. As soon as the Shimmer disappeared, multiple organs gave out. They had to incinerate his body for fear of contamination. It’s like he never existed.

The fourth thing is that Rey is seven weeks pregnant. 

“How is that possible?” she demands. “I was only in there for a few days.”

Finn Storm gives her a strange look. “You were in there for four months.”

.

When they finally do release her, they take her to Ben. He’s sitting on the bed in the room she’d stayed in, but he leaps to his feet to hug her as soon as she steps inside. 

“Ben,” she murmurs. “I have to tell you something.” She takes his hand and flattens it over her belly. 

He stills. “That’s...from the Shimmer?”

She nods. “That twenty four hours we spent together amounts to almost two months in the real world, oddly enough.”

Ben gets on his knees and kisses her belly. She threads her fingers through his hair, smiling when he looks up at her with a shimmer in his eyes that wasn’t there before. 

_ It destroys and it creates. _

_ It’s making something new.  _

  
  



End file.
